Laws are put in place in a society to both lay down legal and moral boundaries, and to ensure that a citizenry does not fall into anarchy when they find it easier to commit a crime than to work honestly towards a solution. And perhaps no greater example in recent days could be with the establishment of transgender bathroom rights, which just days after their legalization had both stalkers and sexual predators abusing this politically correct edict.

And now in Italy, a new ruling by their high court has made it no longer a crime to steal food from any and all retailers if the individual claims only that they were hungry.

Stealing small amounts of food to stave off hunger is not a crime, Italy’s highest court of appeal has ruled.

Judges overturned a theft conviction against Roman Ostriakov after he stole cheese and sausages worth €4.07 (£3; $4.50) from a supermarket.

Mr Ostriakov, a homeless man of Ukrainian background, had taken the food “in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment”, the court of cassation decided.

Therefore it was not a crime, it said.

A fellow customer informed the store’s security in 2011, when Mr Ostriakov attempted to leave a Genoa supermarket with two pieces of cheese and a packet of sausages in his pocket but paid only for breadsticks. – BBC